Tuesday, December 27, 2011

At
Year's End

Looking
at politics, both at home and abroad, it is all too easy to become
totally negative. Where ever we look, we see the power-hungry, the
greedy ones mouth empty pieties while oppressing those weaker than
themselves. Everywhere we see cruelty, committed without hesitation,
in the name of religious faith and the teachings of sacred
Scriptures, or in the name of freedom and equality.

While
all this is true, the last year has given us reasons for hope. While
corporate leaders and government strongmen (and women) have savaged
ordinary people, rebellion has raised its shining head all over the
Arab world, all over the United States, and Europe, and Australia.
The latest news shows tent cities springing up in a number of Israeli
cities.

The
hypocritical platitudes of world leaders have deceived no one: the
homeless, the unemployed, the working people whose money buys less
and less of the promised middle-class consumption goods, the young
people who can no longer afford to get an education, the old who
after a life of hard work find themselves impoverished – all have
seen the rapid increase of inequality. They have seen, at the same
time, that no one cares for their plight. Politicians want to get
reelected and that is all they care about.

But
now the victims of our so-called leaders are speaking out. In North
Africa and the Middle East they have been fighting back and have
given their lives for greater freedom and self-determination. The
Occupiers all over the world have taken upon them discomfort for the
sake of speaking out clearly about injustice and political
oppression. We must not only hope that these protests will continue
in the new year but must do our best to support them in what ever way
we can.

Look
at this paragraph written by Occupiers in Worcester Massachusetts:

"At
such an important point in our history, now is not the time to seek
to restore normality. Now is not the time to be conservative. Do not
hold back!… Don't beg for reforms. Insist on your dreams. Think
big! Look around you for inspiration of how things could be. Now is
the moment to ask yourself how you would like the world to be not
what the would settle for. It can be totally different."

Now
is not the time to think about what is "practical." We must
support the Occupiers by taking their and our dreams seriously and
striving for the impossible.